Full text of "How the English fingerprint method arose"

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1915a

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THIS BOOK IS THE GIFT OF

Henry Pelouze de Forest

Class of 1884

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f] eJLe. ^JoAjK^,

Wins Fame In Laundry Marks

LONDON (/"".— The criminals of
Great Britain are trembling in their
shirts. A man who knows his laun-
dry marks has become chief constable
of Scotland Yard.

It wasn't John Ashley who coined
the old saying; about murder will out,
but it's John Ashley who knows, per-
haps better than any man living, that
it usually comes out in the wash. And
now Ashley, the specialist in laundry
marks, is chief constable of the Yard.
He succeeded Frederick Wensley.
Britain's ace of detectives, who re-
tired Aug. 1, after 42 years of service.
Unlike 'Wensley, who has the hawk-
like features of the perfect Sherlock
Holmes, Ashley looks as mild as a
Sunday school superintendent.

He entered his career of crime de-
tection quite by accident: as a lad
of 15 he crossed the path of a burglar
with disastrous results to the burglar,
and when a police commissioner com-
plimented him on the clever capture
young Ashley decided to make a regu-
lar thing of it. As soon as he could
he joined the force.

For six years he worked in uni-
form ; then they made him a detective.
Later, as a divisional detective inspec-
tor, he solved one of the most per-
plexing murder mysteries in .the his-
tory of the yard by bringing to justice
Louis Voisin, the Belgian butcher who
murdered a French soldier's w : ife vis-
iting England during the war.

Ashley's acquaintance with laundry
marks is vast, and intricate. To him
they are as easy to read as the identi-
fication tags soldiers carried during
the war. To him every laundry in
the land is an unofficial branch of
Scotland Yard, putting nice little tags
on all the people he may want to
meet later. To him a shirt is as easy
to read as a book, and a sock is as
good as a letter.

Criminals who value their privacy
won't play drop-the-haudkerchief
around Scotland Yard.

HOW, THE ENGLISH
FINGER-PRINT METHOD
AROSE. j

■ ■■ ■

HENRY FAULDS.

'Thou hast no need of the things that are secret."— Ecclcsiasticus, III., 22.

HANLEY: ^' # ,P

Published for the Author by Wood, Mitchell & Co., Ltd.,
Oriel Works, Park Street.

PRICE 3d. (post free).

PREFACE.

The publication of my recent Guide to Finger-Print
Identification has laid upon me the burden of a rather
heavy correspondence.—yfr^/, as to my claim to have
been the earliest to publish a proposal to identify persons
by the finger-print method ; and, secondly, in answering
requests for further details as to the system proposed by
me for classifying and indexing finger-print patterns.

It was found to be difficult to answer civilly and
correctly in a short sentence or two, inquiries which, how-
ever kindly meant, were often full of errors, ignorance of
published facts, and even of total misconceptions ; and
again, no one but a close student of finger-prints could
hope to profit by, or understand, an exposition of how to
arrange them systematically in a bureau.

Thus it seemed to me wise to word the matter for
convenience in brief compass, and I really hope to have
done so finally, for such work is neither very entertaining
nor remunerative.

I am now preparing, and hope soon to deposit with
some learned society or university library, to which
students of the system may have access, a clearly-written
and bound copy of my index of Dactylographs. To
print such a technical work for which no general demand
can ever exist is beyond the limits of my present means.
The proposal to have it printed by a certain learned
society was met by the objection that it had already been
made known publicly, as stated in the Guide, and could
not now be embodied in original Transactions.

How the English Finger-Print
Method arose.

£^ROF. Otto Schlaginhaufen, while my
Guide was going through the press in
England, published in the August
number of Gegenbaur s Jahrbuch for
1905, a very copiously illustrated,
learned and accurate article on the
lineations in human and other skins, a study of which
forms the basis of the general science of Dactylography.
The writer is attached to the Anthropological Institute
of Zurich, and has given, I believe, more attention to
this complex subject than any single English writer has
done. He does me the honour of stating (p. 584) that
with my contribution to Nature in 1880 there begins a
new period in the investigation of the lineations of the
skin, that, namely, in which they were brought into the
service of criminal anthropology and medical jurisprudence.
This publication, he says, is the forerunner of a copious
literature which flowed over into the popular magazines
and daily press, and promises to keep no bounds. After

a correct summary of my original statements, he shows
that I pointed the right way, as he believes, to gain a
knowledge of man's genetic descent by a study of the
corresponding lineations of certain lower animals, such
as lemurs, and that I had indicated other directions
in which medical jurisprudence might profit by such
investigations. These are of no interest here. In a
brief footnote Dr. Schlaginhaufen deals with the published
correspondence between Sir Wm. Herschel and myself,
which note I here give verbatim :

"Zeitlich erschien die Publikation Faulds' friiher; aber
Herschel wies durch die Veroffentlichung eines halboffiziellen
Briefes nacb, dass er sich schon 1877 mit dem Gegendstand
beschaftigt habe. Jedenfalls sind beide Beobachter unabhangig
voneinander auf die gleiche Idee gekommen, und wenn auch die
Materialien, die Herschel lieferte, fur die kriminelle Anthro-
pologic speziell von grosserer Bedeutung waren, so hat Faulds
doch in seiner ersten Mitteilung die Erforschung der Hautleisten
von einem hoheren Gesichtspunkt aus erfasst und ihr in einem
umfassenderen Plan den Weg vorgezeichnet."

That is to say :

" Faulds's publication was earlier in time, but Herschel
showed by the publication of a half-official letter that he had
been engaged with the method from 1877 onwards. In any case
both observers had independently come to the same idea, and
while the material which Herschel supplied was of greater service
for special criminal anthropology, Faulds had in his first com-
munication grasped the investigation of the skin lineations from
a higher standpoint, and had indicated the way to it through a
more comprehensive plan."

With the decision of so competent a judge I have
really no quarrel. A review of my Guide appeared
in Nature, of date October 19th, 1905, and was signed

F.G., in which initials some ingenious persons may think
they can detect the clue to a distinguished expositor of
the subject of finger-prints. The critic says of his victim,
that he was "a zealous and original investigator of finger-
prints." He also alludes to me in my 1880 contribution
as "dwelling upon the legal purposes to which they might
be applied, and he appears to be the first person who
published anything, in print (F.G.'s italics) on this
subject." Sir William Herschel himself on November
22nd, 1894, in Nature made, though in rather circuitous
language, a similar admission. The baronet says : —
" To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Faulds' letter of
1880 was, what he says it was, the first notice in the
public papers, in your columns, of the value of finger-
prints for the purpose of identification."

If the words "in your columns" is intended to con-
vey, or suggest, that other journals contained earlier
references, this is met by the conclusive entry in the
Index Medicus, in which my article is noted as the very
first contribution of which knowledge had been obtained.
Surely, the fact that a student has the courage to put his
idea "in print" counts for something in the evolution of
a discovery. And on the whole, as the world wags,
printed publicity in a matter of cosmopolitan importance
is the one thing that really matters.

My critic goes on to say that my " suggestions of
introducing the use of finger-prints fell flat." Perhaps
they did, but only in the sense that they formed the
foundation for a very extensive and vigorous upbuilding
of scientific and even popular literature, which dates from
that very period, as F.G. must very well know. There

was a sudden waking up of interest just after that date,
and even " Mark Twain" must have set to work very
soon afterwards on his Life on the Mississippi, which
contains a clever story based upon the value of " thumb-
prints" as evidence. It was published early in 1883. I
wrote before then, sending specimens to the police and
criminal departments of most of the leading countries, to
several lecturers on medical jurisprudence, and to many
scientists and explorers. To my old professor of medical
jurisprudence I offered to prepare a set of slides for class
instruction, but got no acknowledgment of my proposal.
Little was actually accomplished till my return to England
at the close of 1885 through the sudden illness of my wife.
My father's illness and death followed in 1886, and I had
to look for a livelihood first of all. During the following
two years which were chiefly spent in London, I had the
opportunity, and used it, of expounding my ideas on
finger-prints to many scientific people. I laid great stress
on the fact of their permanence, which I had tested by
careful experiment, and showed to many in London and
Glasgow, specimens of them done from the same person
at different dates.

Mr. F. Galton, as lie has stated in his work Finger
Prints (p. 2), began the study on which so much pre-
liminary work had been already done by me, in 1888 just
after these doings of mine. His cousin, Charles Darwin,
had in 1880 promised to bring my letter to him on the
subject of skin lineations before Mr. Galton. Whether he
had omitted to do so, or that Mr. Galton has merely for-
gotten the circumstance, I cannot tell. Mr. Darwin
evidently from his answer to me had never heard of the
subject till I called his attention to it in relation to the

genetic descent of man. It has proved to be a matter of
the utmost importance in that respect, and the study is
now being eagerly taken up by many students in various
parts of the world Many of them, indeed, have already
furnished most fruitful and significant details.

F.G. adds what appears to me to be either a most
serious or very ludicrous statement of the reasons why
my suggestions were not fruitful, or as he more bluntly
expresses it, "fell flat."

I quote the passage in full :

" The reason that he did not attract attention was presum-
ably that he supported them by no convincing proofs of three
elementary propositions on which the suitability of finger-prints
for legal purposes depends. It was necessary to adduce strong
evidence of the, long since vaguely alleged, permanence of those
ridges on the bulbs of the fingers that print their distinctive
lineations. It was necessary to adduce better evidence than
opinions based on mere inspection, of the vast variety in the
minute details of those markings, and finally, for purposes of
criminal investigation, it was necessary to prove that a large
collection could be classified with sufficient precision to enable
the officials in charge of it to find out speedily whether a
duplicate of any set of prints that might be submitted to them
■ did or did not exist in the collection. Dr. Faulds had no part
in establishing any one of these most important preliminaries."

Now, if F.G. had contented himself with expressing
his belief that Mr. Francis Galton had done much more
in the matters spoken of than the present writer had
published, or that Sir William Herschel had done these
things, although, of course he had not put them " in print "
one could understand and smile. Mr. Galton himself had
modestly said, in 1895, Finger-print Directories (p. 5),
" Those who will consent to stand on my shoulders, are

likely to see their way to improvements more surely than
if they do not accept that aid." Yet he had to lean on
Bertillon's crutches !

However F.G., after having seemingly made out
that mere " print " was not of much account, coolly decides
that anything else I might have done, was not done at
all, because I had not put it into "print." Sir William
Herschel's work only came to light through the publicity
given to my proposal.

Is there one law then, for the baronet and his ftdus
Achates, Mr. Galton, and another, and more stringent one
for the provincial surgeon ? The statement, issued in a
responsible scientific magazine like Nature, is very
remarkable, because anyone versed in such problems can
at once see that the " three elementary propositions " laid
down by the reviewer cannot be disentangled one from
another, in the practical relation which alone gives their
discussion any value.

How could anyone attempt to classify finger-prints
for identification without recognizing the variety of
patterns? How could anyone think of their variety as
having value without permanence behind them ? How
could anyone face the problem of dealing with masses of
men for identification by these patterns without having
already provided a system of classification? A little
training in philosophy in a Scotch college would have
saved F.G. from making so silly a blunder. I had as a
matter of fact sent to Nature along with my article a
series of figures— nature-printed — which the editor of
Nature, in a note acknowledges and commends, but could

not insert. These would have shown that I had not
ignored, but had emphatically recognised, the great variety
of patterns. Indeed, as I had been five years in the
Paisley shawl trade before studying medicine, I had had
exceptional technical training in the subject of patterns,
and how to distinguish and classify them. My methods
of careful measurement have been fully explained to
experts in the Guide, and some figures of the delicate
instruments needed are supplied in that work. It was
not the lack of those provisions mentioned that
made public men a little shy of the system. It
was the clear perception I impressed on officials of the
need of those very qualities that possibly made them
imagine a greater difficulty than had really to be met.
I write with a clear and vivid remembrance of those
official and scientific objections, and was able in 1888
(before Mr. Galton had, as he tells us. begun the study),
to meet and answer them, every one. Now, as to
details : — If I may modestly crave the liberty claimed by
Sir William Herschel and Mr. F. Galton, to appeal to
facts occurring outside of "print," surely my experiments
and demonstrations to students and medical men in
Tsukiji Hospital, Tokyo, were as public as Sir William
Herschel's finally unsuccessful efforts to apply the system
in India. My students, myself and several medical men,
some of whom were western doctors, used pumice-stone,
sand-paper, acids and razors to obliterate the lineations,
time after time, without succeeding in modifying them in
the slightest degree, over a period of about three years. A
scheme I had formed to watch the history of any possible
variations in a large number of individuals fell through in
consequence of the misfortune which brought me suddenly
back to England without time for arrangements. Enough

had been observed, however, to enable me confidently, as
a practical biologist, to assert the invariableness, for
practical identification purposes, of the patterns formed
by the lineations of human finger-tips. This contention
has been amply sustained by numerous workers, and my
confidence in its validity was such that I never again
seriously doubted that it had been sufficiently tested. So
far from ignoring the possible danger of such variations,
however, I am the only one who has ever publicly pointed
out where such a danger is most likely to lurk, namely,
in cases recovering from scarlet or typhoid fevers. I have
endeavoured to enlist the interest of medical men and
nurses in this subject, but hitherto have not received one
solitary instance of such variations in reply to my
numerous solicitations for aid' in this field of observation.

As to my system of classification and indexing I
cannot deal at present otherwise than in the way I have
indicated in the preface to this pamphlet. The methods of
Mr. F. Galton,and of Chief Commissioner Sir-fames-Henry
(whose organisation has been highly commended), based
on the former, are elementary, and were tried and discarded
by me before adopting my own. They are, if I may say so
without offence, what marsupials like the kangaroo are in
the organic world — very good as a first draught, but they
are never able to get much "forrarder."

I offered to prepare a model bureau based on that
method in 1 888-9 when a leading detective was sent to me
by Scotland Yard to learn what were my plans for identi-
fication by finger-prints. Mr. Galton was only beginning,
if he had begun, the study then.

The answer was that the system seemed to be
scientific and ingenious, but that it was of no use then
going into that matter till legislation had made the experi-
ment possible. This matter is referred to in p. 88 of the
Guide. The term "photograph" seems to be now used
officially for finger-prints, so as to keep within the law.
Teeth, I believe, have been knocked out in obtaining those
novel sun pictures, made with printer's ink, by main force
from reluctant criminals. I again laid my methods in this
direction as fully as time permitted before Mr. Brodrick's
Committee, who had to deal with the problem of identi-
fication in the army. All this F. G. must have very well
known when he reviewed my Guide to Finger- Print
Identification, if he read the book, as the matter is stated
in that work explicitly. The original form— a copperplate
proof — for the five fingers of the right hand, prepared by
me in Japan, about 1879, is in the Library of the Faculty
of Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow. That for the left
hand was prepared some months afterwards.

The question in a nutshell is now reduced to some-
thing like this. The priority of publication is conceded
to me, but to me alone is evidence of any other kind than
"print" to be denied. I have elsewhere showed how
necessarily weak and indefinite was the method or rather
' were the various tentative methods, brought into use for
a brief time by Sir William Herschel. These are now
absolutely known to be inapplicable, when even moderately
large numbers have to be dealt with.

My own original scheme in 1880, now officially
adopted, of printing in serial order the lineations
of all fingers of at least one hand is the only

one which gives security to the public and to the
criminal himself against false identifications, although
three fingers might suffice for many civil purposes. There
are several good reasons why both hands should be im-
printed in the case of recidivists. In conclusion, neither
Sir William Herschel nor Mr F. Galton are known to me
personally. They have both contributed very largely to
the development of this complex, but most trustworthy,
English method of scientific identification, a method which
is rapidly being adopted for criminal purposes by the
civilised world, and ought to have added to it now the
nobler function of enabling us to deal efficiently with con-
tracts and insurance and to recognise the dead after ship-
wreck, earthquake, fire, or battle. My own feeling is that
to have been of some humble service in the opening
development of such a grand series of social utilities is in
itself a great reward.

"GUIDE TO FINGERPRINT
IDENTIFICATION."

By HENRY FAULDS, L.F.P.S., Mem. London Sociological Society, &c.

Many years Surgeon-Superintendent of Tsukiji Hospital, Tokyo, Japan.

PRICE:— Full Cloth, lettered In Cold, 3/6 net; Stiffened
Paper Cover, 2/- net. Postage 3d. extra.

PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR BY

Wood, Mitchell & Co., Ltd., Printers & Publishers, Hanley.

The author was the first to publish a proposal to use Finger-prints for identification, in
Nature, October 28th, 1880, and was the only expert invited to give evidence before a Govern-
ment Committee in 1902. Two months afterwards Finger-prints came into official use for the
recognition of old offenders, and their use is increasingly successful. Every important point in
Finger-print study is copiously illustrated by diagrams, nature -prints, and photographic
enlargements, including some prints from the paws of monkeys.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

There seems not a shadow of doubt that to Mr. Faulds belongs the honour of priority of
publication in this matter. — Daily Chronicle (Review signed " Tighe Hopkins ").

The article in Nature, 1880, was the first published suggestion, and was no doubt quite
original on the part of the writer, to whom belongs all the credit due. — The Times.

Illustrated with photographs and charts, the book may be recommended as a practical and
useful study of the subject.— The Scotsman.

A zealous and original investigator of finger-prints He can write well, and the

photographic illustrations which his publisher has supplied are excellent. — Nature.

Contains the fruits of over thirty years' study by the pioneer of the now universally

accepted system, Mr. Henry Faulds A particularly lucid account of a complicated

subject, and is interesting not only to specialists but to the general reader and the curiosity
hunter alike. — Westminster Gazette.

Credit where credit is due. Mr. Henry Faulds' claim to honourable mention in connection
with the system . . . has been strangely overlooked. . . . His treatment of the "mask
murders " case, for instance, is admirable. . . . This is altogether a very sane little treatise.
It should be in the hands of everyone who has to do with identification by finger-patterns. — The
Law Times,

The reader is almost bound to be struck by the doctor's caution. He is fully alive to the
dangers of the system in the hands of the incompetent, and he reiterates the necessity of the work
being undertaken by experts with a scientific training. . . . The doctor may be congratulated
on his aim to be thoroughly practical without being unduly technical. — The Hongkong Daily
Presb.

This work contains a clear account of the principles of dactylography, or finger-print
study, &c. . . . The author rightly thinks that the readings of finger-print evidence should
be submitted to the scientific expert, who alone can keep this kind of evidence free from fallacy ;
to depend upon partially skilled persons must be a grave danger from a public point of view. —
The Lancet.

A most valuable scheme under proper safeguards. Both the scheme and the safeguards
are adequately dealt with here.— The Law Magazine and Review.

Oactploscopp.

Although dactyloscopy — or, as I should prefer to call it, dactylo-
graphy — has existed for a quarter of a century, no reference to it, or
to its practical application in identification by the comparison of finger
furrow patterns is to be found, so far as I know, in any recent text-
book of medical jurisprudence or anatomy. It is not named or hinted
at in the recent extension of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," nor in the
copious and well-arranged index to the whole of that extensive work.

A few words of exposition, therefore, by one who has given some
attention to the subject, may perhaps be helpful.

The rugae or ridges of the skin, with their corresponding furrows,
apart from any relation they may have to the sweat-pores and the
tactile sense, seem to fulfil a useful function in the way of helping our
hands to grasp objects firmly. When the fingers are well softened
in water, and are then rubbed along a glass vessel, a musical sound is
elicited, which seems to be caused by the successive resistance and
yielding of the ridges. The horny-handed workman uses his physio-
logical resources to give his hands a better grip in a well-known way.
But a new utility has been conferred on the peculiar texture of the
fingers. Looked at carefully, the furrows in the skin are seen to lie
closely and evenly like those in a well-ploughed field. But just as the
ploughman is observed sometimes to veer round some unseen obstacle
and to form furrows in a new pattern, so you find in the palmar skin
of the fingers peculiar patterns are formed. These present infinite
varieties of detail, and resemble a greatly condensed railway map with
junctions and sidings, loops, and curves. The rugae are confined to
the palmar surfaces of the hands and feet. The feet, in this country
at least, do not afford a convenient field for study, and the conditions
of life would render them altogether unsuitable as a means of identifica-
tion. With the hands, however, no such difficulty occurs, and their
patterns have usually, I think, even more distinction of character about
them. As I wrote to Charles Darwin twenty-four years ago, monkeys
have similar but simpler patterns in the rugae of their fore and
posterior toes.

Dactyloscopy.

In a long-continued series of experiments on myself and many
others, by rubbing away the ridges with sand-paper or shaving them
off with razors, I found that the patterns invariably reproduced them-
selves with perfect fidelity. There can now be little doubt of their
persistence during life, and the direct evidence of their continuity is
now very great. This fact and their extraordinary complexity and
variety is the basis of their growing use in identification.

The parts of the palms which have been found most serviceable for
■identification are those on the last phalanx of thumb and fingers,
where specially characteristic ovals, circles, parallels, whorls, spirals,
loops, dots, callipers, couplings, and the like, are to be observed.

There are two complementary ways of printing them from nature,
as ferns and leaves are copied. In the one method smooth or glazed
paper is used, which has been evenly smoked at the flame of a candle
or in some other way. The dactylografh , as I name the resulting
print, is then negative, the ridges coming out white and the furrows
black. Such impressions are often very delicate and beautiful, showing
even the ]3ores perfectly. They may be made permanent by running
some thin varnish or methylated spirit over them. Friar's balsam
does very well for the purpose. The other and more practical mode
for general use resembles ordinary printing. A porcelain tile, metal
sheet, or ordinary school slate is smeared thinly and evenly with
printers' ink, which may be dabbed on with a cork or a rag, or applied
with a little printers' roller now sold for the express purpose. The
resulting print is a positive dactylograph, in which the furrows remain
white while the ridges impress their image in black. The distinction
is of importance. A judge who insisted on examining for himself the
imprints might be puzzled by the seeming contradictions in the
language of experts as to particular ridges or furrows.

A fine quality of ink is supplied by Reeves and Sons (Ltd.), 53,
Moorgate-street, in little collapsible tubes, such as artists use. The
paper is better to be slightly damp, and great care should be taken
to prevent friction and smudging details while the ink is wet.

I come now to the utility and trustworthiness of this mode of identi-
fication. It was hoped at one time that photography would do every-
thing for this department of jurisprudence. I have in my possession
a series of aortraits of srominent aeoale done recently and others of

Dactyloscopy.

the same persons taken twenty years before. Pew of those duplicate
portraits are at all recognisable as being of the same person. Then
Bertillon's method of bodily measurements was of some service; but
it is too delicate for any but experts to use accurately, and it is reported
to have quite broken down under the strain of great numbers. Our
Home Office was a little indisposed to move hastily in such a matter
as dactylography, and Bertillon's system had the immense advantage
of being of foreign manufacture, and had first to be tried. That the
English system has at last taken root is now clear. Here is a bit of
evidence from a criminal case (resulting in conviction) from the
columns of the Daily Chronicle, December 2nd, 1903. Many such
cases have never been reported. The witness is significantly described
as Detective-Sergeant Collins, of the " Finger Print Office, Scotland
Yard." The witness, we are told, had " not the slightest shadow of
a doubt that the finger-prints of Elliott were identical with those in
the records at Scotland Yard. He might be considered an expert on
the matter of finger-prints. Altogether he had dealt with about
500,000 cases of finger-prints." To this report may be added a sentence
from that of the Times, of the same date: — "He had never known
the finger-prints of different persons to agree."

Experience has thus amply confirmed my original contention, based
on much experiment and observation, that finger-print patterns are
persistent. Such trivial modifications as occasionally, but rarely, occur
have never, in my experience, affected the patterns so as to destroy
the overwhelming evidence of identity they afford any more than a
fresh pimple on a man's face would prevent us from recognising him
on the street.

The study of dactylography offers a wider field than that of its
practical application in jurisprudence. I have been struck with the
promise it gives of some light on heredity ; race relationships might even
be traced back by its aid to certain lemuroids or anthropoid apes.
Professor Bowditch, of Harvard, wrote me many years ago as to his
interest in the developmental relationships of anterior and posterior.
limbs as co-related to those patterns.

I should like to suggest a careful scrutiny of prints taken at the
onset of enteric and scarlet fevers, and then again after the completion
of convalesence. Records should, of course, be carefully dated at

Dactyloscopy.

the time when made. One or both hands might be taken ; but even
one or two fingers might yield interesting facts as to changes. I shall
be happy to receive any examples of changes having been thus detected,
to be returned if desired after scrutiny.

The practical utility of dactylography, however, must now force
itself on the minds of our profession, as it promises to be applied in
widely different spheres of life. During war time identification is
often impossible from injury or deca}'; but the rugae long retain their
characteristics, and are quite easily seen in Egyptian mummies.

Again, pensioners are proverbially long-lived, and I daresay their
finger-patterns are not always quite persistent. Insurance frauds for
large amounts are done by the 'personation of corpses, if I may use the
term, aud where records had been made of dactylographs detection
would be very simple.

HENRY FAULDS.

36, Lichfield Street,
Hanley, Staffs.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY